Have you changed something about yourself to please your partner?

Apparently, if you believe the Daily Star Kim Kardashianâ€™s boyfriend of the moment Kanye West, has requested that she get rid of her hair extensions. What leg does he have to stand on, in making SUCH A DEMAND? â€œSheâ€™s beautiful without themâ€. This latest kim/kanye kerfuffle got me thinking…has your husband or boyfriend tried to change you?

photo courtesy of http://www.stylebistro.com/

Listen I married a man who is fifteen years older than me- so of course he attempted to wield his I’ve lived on this earth longer than you I know better, so you need to listen to me attitude over me when we first met. I think my mother even referred to him as a SVENGALI. But the truth is- we have very different tastes and ideas about clothing. And while I did try to get into his preferred twin sets and Liz Claiborne mom style jeans and buttoned down oxford shirts ( which I subsequently have torn up and use as shmatas to clean my bathroom) I know, or at least always believed his advice was coming from a good place. A sincere place- and being far more conservative than me he just didn’t think my tight shirts and skin tight painted on jeans did me justice- or

I was 23, and VERY malleable, when we met and the truth is I definitely did modify my look to please him. I stopped wearing my high heel platform sneakers and glittery white eye shadow. I tried to don those buttoned down cardigan and khakis…but I felt like a fraud, and to be quite honest I felt kind of dowdy and frumpy too. I am a short girl- and being a big breasted woman I need to maximize the very small amount of space that exists between my breasts and waist and if I wear an amorphous shirt- well it just looks like I’m top heavy with no waist.

Still I did initially want to please him, I so desperately needed his approval- I needed it for my self esteem. At 23 I didn’t realize that I needed those things to come from within and no amount of changing the way I dressed or his comments would make me feel good. I needed to feel good on my own.

So I told him I was done wearing the mom jeans and the twin sets and reclaimed my personal style which is ever evolving- and while it doesn’t quite resemble the Lands Ends models my husband covets- I feel like I’ve found a happy medium- clothes that make me feel good and my husband doesn’t abhor. Although today he told me I’m in desperate need of a bra intervention (what he really means is he’d like me to find a bra which resembles a straight jacket….)

So, how do you feel about changing your look to please your partner- have you done it?

Comments

When I went through breast cancer I lost my hair. I liked the way I looked bald – and I loved the way I felt bald. I could get in and out of the shower in 5 mins and no blow drying :). If I had my way, I would be bald today instead of sweating with my hair down – or constantly putting it up in a clip (which looks sorta bald anyway!) – but my husband loves my hair long. I married him when it was split down the middle, straight as a stick and down past my butt.

I met my husband when I was 16 and I married at 21. He is 10 years older than I and I sound a lot like you :). I used to wear flowery halter dresses – and he is a very conservative man. I did change my style – but mainly because my style evolved naturally – and I am happier in more conservative clothes. While I value my own feelings about how I look above anyone’s – I still want to be attractive to the one man who truly matters to me in that regard. When his eyesight really starts to fail — I’ll probably go bald naturally by that time and be happy about it …LOL. So the answer is yes — I would change for him. And I hope he would say the same.

Melissa Chapman blogs about her marriage and everything in between at Married My Sugar Daddy and her kids and parenting right here at The Staten Island Family. Her work has appeared in The Staten Island Advance, Care.com, ABC News,BlogHer, Baby Center, Momtourage, Babble, The Washington Post, Time Out NY Kids, iVillage and Lifetime Moms.